Khali Strahd
Character
The Past of Lu'um K'i'ik'el. (Dark Nexus Post)
“Damage report!”Explosions rocked the hull of the KO3S Battle Cruiser. The Captain stood from his chair, watching the viewing screens and holo images. One of the bridge cadets responded to his command.
“Another wave of drop pods sir! They have boarded the fourth and fifth levels. Marines moving to intercept sir.”
Captain Kroger paced the bridge. Stopping from time to time to look again at the reports and see if anything at all has changed in their favor. He was confident his ship can repel any boarders, but the battle in space was looking grim and hopeless.
Their enemy was daunting. What they lacked in tact and battle strategy they made up for in sheer numbers and firepower. The K'i'ik'elians were making the enemy pay for every bit of space, but for the enemy blood was cheap. And for the brave defenders, too valuable.
Who were these invaders? Why were they attacking? They simply came out of hyperspace with a massive fleet and instantly began attacking the system.
If not for the quick actions of Captain Kroger himself and a few others, they would not have had the chance to organize a proper defense in time, but even with that quick action it seemed all was hopeless.
The enemy seemed to never run out of their automated fighter drones that whittled away at the defenders squadrons.
Only three battle cruisers were still in the fight out of the ten they managed to sally with their meager compliment of ten squadrons who so far held the enemy in a stalemate in space, but the defenders were losing it in space and couldn't hold out much longer.
And the captain doubted they would be given the benefit of a ground battle.
The enemy fleet of battle cruisers was thick... They had only been able to slow the progress of the fleet to the planets...
The enemy cruisers were massive, black hulled, bristling with armaments, and at the center of the fleet, what looked like a command ship.
As the captain looked at the command vessel through his view screen something happened to it. A bright purple light cut through the haze and grew brighter, coming from somewhere on the hull of the command vessel.
Suddenly a pulse radiated from the ship and reached the defenders fleet, including the captains cruiser. All the ships shuddered... and lost power.
The captain was stunned. Such a weapon really existed? A weapon capable of selectively powering down a whole fleet of enemy ships.
As his ship lost all power, defeat began to sink in as despair came over him.
The gravity of Lu'um K'i'ik'el began to pull their ships down to the surface, and all he and the crew could do is wait for the end.
For many of the crew on the KO3S, it wasn't the end, including the captain.
Captain Kroger pulled himself from the wreckage of the bridge with the help of several of the ensigns.
The crew brought him and any of the surviving wounded outside of the cooling wreckage of the battle cruiser to treat them.
Captain Kroger brushed off the medics and looked up at the sky.
They had lost, and now it was time for the enemy to take their prize, whatever it was they wanted.
But Captain Kroger had a feeling that whether they lived or died, it would come from the sky.
For a long while nothing happened and Captain Kroger allowed his wounds to be treated, he reasoned that he may as well spend his last seconds, minutes, hours, or days in comparative comfort.
But he never took his eyes off the sky.
He imagined the enemy, positioning themselves around the planet, either blockading it or forming the firing squad, their big ugly ships pointing their strange weapons at the planet.
He mused how anti-climatic it would be if they demanded surrender now after attacking without provocation, though he reasoned that the enemy was in a position to do whatever it felt like with them now.
An answer came from the sky, just as the Captain deduced.
He watched as a violet light began to grow, forming a new pseudo sun as another strange weapon charged up.
The Captain, along with the survivors of the KO3S all stood up and watched.
The Captain gave a salute to his world, his home, and one by one his surviving crew followed suit.
They all stood in the face of their death, knowing no one would remember their last act of defiance, knowing there may not even be anyone to remember they ever existed, but they stood anyways, not for those to come, but for those who have gone.
The enemy command ship fired its super weapon at Lu'um K'i'ik'el.
The beam did not destroy the planet, but instead washed over it, and in a split second all life was removed from the planet.
The death of an entire civilization rippled through the force and the force itself cried out at the loss.
The planet was ashen, but over centuries grew up again and life returned, but always the ghosts of the dead haunted the old ruins and the presence of death never left.